


A Post-Impressionist Christmas

by CosetteFauchelevent



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosetteFauchelevent/pseuds/CosetteFauchelevent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bahorel owns a bookshop, Feuilly gets laid off the day before Christmas Eve, and Cosette is their conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Post-Impressionist Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ironfrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironfrost/gifts).



Vincent Bahorel didn’t own an alarm clock, as he had absolutely no need of one. For one, Cosette set the alarm on her phone every night, without fail, and it was a rare night indeed when she didn’t sleep tucked close to his side, her head on his chest, arm wrapped around his waist, his fingers tangling in her dark curls. He’d never been...enamored of a woman until she practically skipped through the front door of his bookshop and inquired about the “Help Wanted” sign in his window, but oh was he susceptible to her charms, to those dimples and those curls and those big doe eyes. First she’d been invited to be his employee, then soon his mistress. It was comfortable, familiar, like a relationship that had already lasted years although, in the grand scope of their lifespans was still in its infancy. Cosette laughed at him when he tried to argue with her, and, every night, set her alarm. He didn’t quite know what had happened to the alarm clock he’d kept before her. It vanished, it seemed, into thin air.

Regardless, even, of Cosette and her curls, of Cosette and her laughter, of Cosette and her alarms, Vincent’s bed faced the window, and he remembered not the last time he had been able to sleep once the sun fell on him. They’d tried black out curtains, a respite for the mornings that he didn’t have to climb from the soft sheets early, mornings with nowhere to go and no business to attend to, but without the sun, Vincent felt trapped, suddenly claustrophobic and the curtains had come down that very morning, now stuffed in the back of his closet.

And yet it was a third thing that had driven Vincent from his bed that early morning without even the slightest hint of drowsiness, and that was the Gingernut. 

That wasn’t actually his name, and Bahorel knew that, but he didn’t know his actual name, and it was a good nickname, even Cosette agreed, and not in the nose-wrinkling, oh my god you are such a weirdo way that she normally agreed with his more obscure monikers (she herself had been his “little monkey” for all of three days until she threatened bodily harm if he called her that one more time. “Little lark” was an agreeable alternative), but it fit. He was an artist, that was painfully obvious, and not just because of his penchant for the coffee table art books that he would pull from the shelves reverently, and read with the care one would show toward an object in a museum’s collection, but also the perpetual array of colours under his nails, and dotting his shirtfronts. Bahorel had even mastered the art of knowing when Gingernut was having a bad day – there would be more colours splattered across the front of his shirt, and it would be in bolder splashes, like he had become angry with whatever canvas he was painting on. Vincent would watch him from his perch behind the counter on the second floor, peering over the balcony for a glimpse at the boy.

“You like him, don’t you?” Cosette had asked, as she came to stand behind him, arms wrapped around his chest, chin resting on his shoulder. There’d been no disappointment, no hurt, not betrayal in her voice, “The red headed kid. You like him.”

“Lark, I like *you*.”

“Well, duh. But you like the gingerbread man down there, too. I can tell.”

A sheepish smile and a blush that rose to the tips of his ears was the only response she needed. 

 

~~

 

Simon Feuilly was lost somewhere in the post-impressionist period, the bright, almost garish colours of Toulouse-Lautrec swimming before him, all modern soundscapes forgotten, replaced, instead by the rustling can-can dancers’ skirts and the tinkling of glasses filled with absinthe being clinked in toasts muffled by laughter and the centuries, when a mug entered his field of vision. A mug, being placed on the side table by the armchair Feuilly reclined in.

“You looked like a tea person.”

Quiet, for a moment, then Feuilly furrowed two ginger eyebrows, “Are...are you talking to me?”

Bahorel nodded. “Yeah.”

“Ah...

Vincent sank into the matching leather armchair across from the one Feuilly sat in, “I’ve seen you. You know, around. Here. Around here.” Oh come on, Vincent! You’re smoother than this, he thought as he winced inwardly.

“Yeah, I...I usually come in after work,” as the ginger spoke, first a sadness, then a little look of panic flashed through his hazel eyes, “I haven’t been loitering too long or anything, h-have I?”

Bahorel chuckled softly, a warm rumbling sound that reverberated through his broad, strong chest, “Not at all,” an even warmer smile to match, “What’s your name?”

“Feuilly. Simon Feuilly.”

“Vincent. Vincent Bahorel.”

They clasped hands, and for the first time, Bahorel noticed a disturbing lack of paint under the other boy’s nails, “You’re a painter, aren’t you? You normally have the evidence on you.”

“I uh, I used to be.”

“Used to be?” Bahorel had never considered art something one could turn off and on at will.

“I used to work at the design house, on Rue de la Mere, but...I got sacked today.”

“Sacked?” Bahorel asked, aghast, “It’s two days ‘til Christmas!”

“Fa la la la, la la la la,” was the ginger’s defeated answer.

“No, no, this isn’t right!” Bahorel leapt to his feet, and yet he wasn’t sure why, “You can’t get sacked at Christmas.”

“Just did,” a tiny shrug, “I have a few weeks at least, to find a job until my rent is due. Say a prayer for me that somebody’s hiring.”

*Plink*! Something bounced off of Bahorel’s head, and he looked up from whence the offending little ball of receipt paper had come; there, sure enough, stood Cosette, giving him that look. Vincent couldn’t help but smile – he didn’t need a conscience, he had his little lark.

“Well, mon ami...that prayer’s just been answered.”

“...what?”

“This place is boring!” Bahorel made a grand gesture around him, “There’s not nearly enough colour.”

“What are you saying?” asked Feuilly softly, hardly daring to believe his luck.

Vincent tapped a knuckle on the post-impressionist book that Feuilly still held in his hands, “All this colour, like in this book, you can paint like that, right?” Feuilly nodded eagerly, “Good...can you start tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve...”

“Do you have plans? Family?”

“No, and uh, no,” another shrug, “Orphan.”

Bahorel smiled broadly, “Not anymore, mon ami...welcome to the family.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays hon! I loved this prompt, and I plan on doing a sequel for you! Also love your username! Also in the Marvel fandom? :D -Lexi (lark-rather-than-dove on tumblr)


End file.
